April 27, 2021

BIONEWS   April 22, 2021
 

Make Marketing Decisions Like a Fighter Pilot

The military loves it, and it's fun to say, but how can something called the OODA loop help you make decisions for your medical marketing?

The OODA loop is an acronym (of course) that stands for the cycle of observe–orient–decide–act, developed by U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd in the 1950s. The technique is used everywhere, from behind the stick in the cockpit level up to the operational level during military campaigns. When pilots use it, they constantly scan the skies, orienting to their position and the environment to make decisions and then act accordingly, continuously looping back to the beginning of the loop.

This technique can be applied in medical marketing, as well.

Observe what's happening in the marketplace, what the competition is doing, and how it compares to the product or service you're offering. Be brutal in your assessment; this is not the time for magical thinking, but cold hard facts.

Orient. Develop your strategy. Is your medical device the best-in-field (with the price tag to prove it?) Are you a fast follower, bringing out new technology on the heels of a larger company, with perhaps a slightly better price point? Is your exemplary service the key to your success? What marketing channels are available and make the most sense?

Now Decide which is the best strategy based on the gathered information and develop your marketing plan accordingly. What does your sales collateral look like? What channels will you employ to market your product? What social media channels will you engage? Digital ads? Print ads? Giant honking billboards? Based on your analyses of the marketplace and your competition,

Act. Implement your marketing.

So that's the OODA part. Now here's the loop. Just like a fighter pilot constantly scans the skies for the enemy, you must continuously monitor the marketplace as well, restarting the OODA loop, again and again, noting what's working and what isn't, what's changing in the market, and how your product is faring. Then you make adjustments based on what you observe.

Then start observing the effects again. And again. And again. Because, you know, it's a loop.

If you'd like an assist in marketing your medical device or service, drop us a line. We've been on this battlefield for a long time and can help you win a decisive victory!

Marketing Tips from the Military
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Eight Tips to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Sparkle and Shine

Have you updated your LinkedIn profile lately? LinkedIn regularly tweaks its format, so taking a gander at your personal page and refreshing it occasionally is a good habit to adopt. An engaging profile assists your business efforts, burnishes your personal brand, and makes you stand out from your competition. Here are eight tips to make your LinkedIn profile pop.
  1. Have a great profile picture. It's weird how many people still don't have a profile pic. Or have one that's is blurry or 20 years old or shows them doing tequila shots. Our tips: Make it a recent photo, portrait size ratio with your face taking up 60% of the picture, dressed as you would for work. Get a colleague to give you an honest opinion, or better yet, give them a few photos and have them choose one (but make sure it's someone who likes you.) Oh, and choose a cool background pic that makes you stand out. Choose one that has to do with your industry for bonus points.
  2. Make the description at the top of the page more than just your job title. Use the headline field to talk about what makes you the unique person that you are. Feel free to inject your personality (unless you have a terrible personality.)
  3. Liven up your summary. This is the story of you, so make it interesting, engaging, and relevant. When you're drafting it, solicit feedback from friends and colleagues, they'll see things you didn't consider. The summary is your elevator pitch about yourself in the LinkedIn space, so make it worthy.
  4. Edit your skills list. Sure, you're good at everything, but who wants to scroll through an endless list of skills. Pluck the most relevant to what you do and your industry, and prioritize them at the top of the list.
  5. Request recommendations. Just like savvy online shoppers read the reviews, a quality recommendation from a valued colleague or client can make you a product with a 5-star review and free shipping.
  6. Publish your nuggets of wisdom. If you write thought leadership pieces, industry articles, blogs, or white papers, pop them into the Publications section. Let the LinkedIn world know about your expertise.
  7. Share. Posting relevant and engaging content and articles in your feed adds value for your connections and can spark great conversations. When posting, add your thoughts about why you think it matters and invite other folks to chime in.
  8. Find good people to follow. Chances are there are thought leaders in your industry who are pumping out good content on LinkedIn regularly. Find them, follow them, and interact with them!
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Feel the Flow and Watch Your Productivity Grow

Have you ever been so absorbed in a task that you lose track of time, miss lunch, and forget to walk the dog? When you feel so wholly engrossed, you might be experiencing a mental state that psychologists (and yogis) refer to as flow.

A good yoga session brings on flow, but so can other forms of exercise. Immersing yourself in your hobby like pottery, model-ship building, or gardening can induce flow. And even writing or (saints preserve us) working on a spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation can get you in the state. Flow experiences occur in different ways but often happens when you are doing something that you enjoy and in which you are skilled. And achieving this state can help you feel greater enjoyment and boost your energy.

Research has found that there are changes in brain activity during flow states and an increase in dopamine released when people are experiencing flow. It gives a sense of well-being, boosts creativity and productivity, and brings about an overall feeling of happiness. It's a good thing.

Achieving Flow

Want to increase your chances of achieving flow? Here are a few tips:

Set clear goals: Flow is more likely to occur when an individual works on a task that has clear goals. A jigsaw puzzle is an excellent example of when a state of flow could happen. The goal is to complete the puzzle with mini goals like flipping over all the pieces, completing the border, and filling in a particular color.

Eliminate distractions: Reduce external stimuli in your environment so you can entirely focus on your task. Shut off the TV, put your iPhone on silent, send the kids out for ice cream, and engage.

Choose something you enjoy: You won't achieve flow if you are doing something you dislike. If you hate spreadsheets, you probably won't find yourself in a state of flow by knuckling down in Excel (unless you learn to love spreadsheets.)

Challenge yourself. As you become more adept at your flow-inducing task, you'll find you want to increase the level of complexity to maintain flow. You might go from the 500-piece jigsaw to the 1000-piece, or you're your way up from writing 300-word blog posts about medical device marketing to 10,000-word white papers on the future of healthcare marketing as it relates to technological advances.

If you want to achieve flow with your healthcare marketing, get in touch. We're Yogi-level (the guru, not the bear) masters of marketing, and we'd love to help.

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Why in the heck do I need a Google My Business Site?

If you've never seen a Google My Business site, we invite you to scoot over to Biotica's GMB site and take a look. From the outside, it looks like a typical website – The big hero image at the top, a. nice click-to-call our account management team, and three or four rows each of blog posts and photos from Biotica and our events.

Why you need another website in your life?

Do you like free things? Of course you, and the Google My Business Site is free! The only investment is the time it takes to create content, upload it, and maintain it once a month or so. No. 2 You'll benefit from a sly search trick to put your site near the top of Search Results. The typical page Ticking down from the top of a standard results page, you'll notice 5-7 paid search ads, then a sliver of a map with three businesses listed underneath it called the MAP Three Pack, then, finally, the organic begin. After a load of organic results, Google packs in another 8-11 ads.

To make matters worse, your prospective patients don't discern between paid ads and organic listings. Ouch. So five ads and one map pack from the top, the best possible organic result ranks number nine on this page. Sadly, getting to page one of Google is not good enough.

Do you like free things? Of course you do, and the Google My Business Site is free!

So, where does the map pack get its information? You guessed it, your Google My Business site, which infuses data into Google Maps, and other search engines and directories. Having your basic business information consistent across most of the web is worth the price of admission. And it's also is a factor that determines your ranking in search. From the Google perspective, sites start to look untrustworthy when a website has different spellings, phone numbers, or services and products.

The Map Three-Pack expands into the Google Map 10-Pack, which offers more extensive listings of businesses. And, it's also a great place to be — at least until you make the three-pack.

The best way to get started is to sign in to your Google account, run through the registration procedure, and start populating your site with your basic information. You can do the whole shebang over a weekend or pay a company to take it off your hands.

A Google Business Site is a must for medical practices, clinics, and hospitals that do business locally. It's also a benefit to those that don't, like medical device manufacturers.

I hope I've given you ammo, if you need it, to argue for a GMB site in your business, and inspired you to build one of your own.

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Danger, Danger, Algorithm Change

Google rolled out a new algorithm update on April 21, 2021, and it's a big one.

According to Google's Zineb Bahajji, this update will have a more significant impact than Panda (which affected 13% of English queries) or Penguin (which affected 4% of global queries). The new algorithm determines whether a page is mobile-friendly or not and delivers a pass/fail grade. Note that this is the data helps inform the local search results that are so critical for physicians, clinics and hospitals.

Google is deadly serious about dinging sites and pages that aren't mobile-friendly, and rewarding those that are. Just care about the mobile compatibility of your website at least as much as Google, and you'll be fine.

It's easy to see the reason why nearly 40% of both paid and organic searches come from mobile devices. In some scenarios, mobile is starting to eclipse the amount of desktop traffic.

Mobile–Friendly – How to Get There

The first step is to assess the state of your mobility. If you're starting a site from scratch, there are three options to consider.
  1. Serve up two sites, one for mobile and one for desktop
  2. Use dynamic serving to offer mobile-optimized content
  3. Responsive design – This is the solution Google prefers

There are pros and cons of both approaches. Before you pull the switch, make sure your developer explains them to you.

Use web analytics to assess your site

Google Analytics can provide you with information to grade your site's mobile friendliness. Go to the Behavior Category and set your secondary dimensions to Mobile Device Information. Then scan the pages that have high bounce rates, and find out why. Is its page speed, layout on mobile devices, design, and memory-intensive visuals and video? The possibilities are endless.

So, if your rankings have taken a beating lately, check and see if your mobile-friendly enough. Or, let Biotica take a look under your hood.

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